What Is A Flash Sale

There is a lot of preparation that goes into creating a Flash Sale that gets quick conversions. I will explain to you what is a Flash Sale and how can you run online Flash Sale in your marketing. And move inventory quick and boost profits.

The definition of a flash sale

noun

a sale of goods at significantly reduced prices, lasting for only a short period.

“The retailer staged a flash sale on the Saturday before Christmas, with 30% reductions off clothing lines.”

thanks to https://www.dictionary.com/

Chris starts his day with the alarm sounding off like a fog horn coming from the bay. His feet hit the floor, and he makes his way to the shower.

Chris gets dressed, finishes his breakfast and sits down to put on his shoes. When he notices his leather boots are beginning to crack and split. His leather boots aren’t bad enough not to wear but knows he better start shopping for a new pair.

He steps out the door and finds the weekly sales ads on the lawn. Takes the paper to work and when he takes his break takes the newspaper from the plastic bag, and right on the front page, he notices Boot Barn and Joe’s Footwear are having a sale for his favorite boots.

Joe’s Footwear sales advertisement displays many sale items for footwear, but his favorite work boots are shown in the ad but are at retail price. Compared to Boot Barn offering of 25% Off For Today Only.

Chris decides right after seeing the ad he is going to Boot Barn right after work and buy new work boots. But what persuaded him to buy now instead of waiting? What convinced him to take action that day?

I’m sure you’ve discovered what motivated Chris to take action now. It was “25% Off Today Only” the sale is only available for a limited time. If he procrastinated, he would miss the sale. Chris had to act fast to get the best deal on his work boots.

9 Super Useful Tips To Improve online FLASH SALES

Creating a flash sale is a great way to expand your brand, acquire new customers, and to sell more products or services in a short time.

A flash sale strategy takes planning. You can’t have a flash sale without figuring out your marketing plan. A marketing campaign that maps out how you are going to target your audience for presenting your product or service to the consumer. And how you are going to proceed after the sale.

There are a few strategies to set up a flash sale. Get to know the different types and decide which type will work for your sales campaign. The most familiar example is a flash sale offering a discount for a limited time only on several products or only one product.

The flash sale creates urgency to buy now. Because the discounts on products or services are only available for “Today” only. Of course, the products or services are still available, beyond the sale date, but they are at standard pricing.

A flash sale is an excellent way to get exposure for your brand. If your business has been around for a while, it can generate more sales. Or if you are introducing your product or service to your audience for the first time. A flash sale strategy works to reach new customers as well as motivate current customers to act now.

Another consideration is what product or services you want to discount for the flash sale. And who you are going to offer a discount. Decide through planning what result you wish to happen. For example, is your strategy to expand your existing customer base? Or only target current customers with the flash sale?

Here is a breakdown of a couple of flash sale strategies depending on the inventory you’re carrying. You can set up a flash sale for selling the seasonal products soon to be passed season dates.

You can offer products that are expensive to attain. Or your favorite merchandise that is inexpensive to produce in bulk. Another way to attract customers is to hold a sale for merchandise that hardly ever goes on sale — your most popular or well-established products. The strategy is to offer customers a substantial discount to reduce inventory and recover some expenses you incurred.

Maybe your analytic website data shows a lot of visitors coming to your website but fail to make a purchase. You can take those products they saved in a cart and re-market them in a flash sale.

You start notifying current customers or site visitors by displaying advertisements that have items in their forgotten cart. Remind them a deal is going on now for their cart items.

You create excitement and urgency by highlighting points like, you only have 99 pieces left or offer fast free shipping. Let them know to act now before they are gone.

QVC implements this strategy each time you watch the products they are showing. You’ll see the price and how many products they have left right on the television screen — the visual displays a timed count down to the end of the sale. And product numbers actively reducing as people buy the products. This on-screen visual is very powerful to motivate the customer to act quickly.

Watching QVC is how I learned a few things about how to market my products, how they motivate people to act now. The first thing you see before starting the product demonstration is visual that says;

“TODAY ONLY PRICE.”

They let people know right from the start what they’re promoting and only have a limited amount of products, and they have fast and free shipping. And by ordering Today, you will have it in two days! These two points provide an incentive to click on the “BUY” button.

I know you, and I aren’t in a position similar to QVC. How do you position yourself for success with a flash sale? The first order of business is to get the word out there that you are having a flash sale.

And to do this, you can use a variety of tactics, but email marketing is a convenient way to contact customers. You can use an email to invite them, provide them with the dates of the flash sale. And when the clock will start counting down, and how they can get fast free shipping.

And if you’ve had your business a while your brand is most likely already established. And most likely using an auto email responder that encourages people to sign-up for your newsletters, social media marketing, click to action buttons to your website, and online advertising for upcoming sales and deals — using a current email list.

To establish a new brand set up all your advertisements to bring them to your landing page. After they land on your site, you can request people to sign up for your newsletter that keeps them informed of product launches, news, and sales.

Start collecting your visitor’s names that have signed up for your newsletters. Once you have a customer email list, you can start sending them emails to let them know the upcoming sales events. But don’t go overboard with sending them emails. Limit the number to three emails.

First Email

The first email you send out would give pertinent information about when the sale will start and why the deal is so incredible.

(example) “Our #1 top-selling product on sale now.”

Second Email

The next email would tell them the price as well as the closing date of the sale.

(example) Our #1 top-selling TV is now 50% off. Sale ends Friday

Third Email

The third email sent out should create an urgency to act Today because quantities are running out along with stating they only have a few days before the sale ends.

(example) The sale concludes Today, and there are only a few TVs left so act now to save big.

Online Advertising / Social Media Platforms

You can use online advertising and social media platforms to get the word out about your flash sale. These two marketing platforms when implemented correctly create awareness and build excitement for the upcoming sale event.

Create a post several posts and publish them on social media. The posts should tell your followers of the flash sale event. Similarly, to your emails, you sent out they should focus on the timeline of the sale, the discount they will receive, create an urgency to buy Today, and why your sale event is so marvelous.

Paid Advertisement

There are other ways to promote your flash sale by using search, display, and paid social media ads. These advertisements feature a “Click To Action” button that influences visitors to take action for the discount or deal.

(example) “Get 50% off Today Only. Buy Now.”

Remarketing Ads

Remember the remarketing advertisements we talked about earlier. Reach out and remarket your ads to visitors that have landed on your website but failed to sign-up for your newsletters, emails, and aren’t following you on social media platforms.

These visitors landed on your site because they were looking for an answer to their problems. Just because they didn’t act at the time doesn’t mean you can’t persuade them in the future to become your customers.

Framework Of A Successful Flash Sale

You have planned and outlined all the criteria you want to have displayed on your flash sale advertisement and taken steps to ensure that your campaign will be a winner. There is one piece of the flash sale you might have omitted. And that is preparing for any issues or obstacles that might arise, and how you will deal with those issues if they arise.

Here is the list of the problems you might encounter. Will shipping be a problem? Do you have enough supply of products you are offering? Are you ready for the increased volume of orders? If you run out of supply have you planned for how you are going to inform the customer? It’s critical to keep the customer informed at all times so they will not be alarmed or disappointed.

The bottom line to a flash sale is to sell your stock fast. A study of flash sales concluded that 45 percent of flash sale merchandise moves more quickly than a supplier expects.

Doing extensive research of supply and demand before setting up your flash sale will put you in a position for success. Make it a point to check your inventory against supply and demand. Two things can make a flash sale fail fast is not having enough inventory or too much inventory.

In the case of running out of inventory, inform your customer’s immediately. Be sincere and forthright with those consumers. Explain to them why they were unable to purchase at that time. Tell them when you will be receiving another shipment and when the next sale will take place. Don’t let the customer hang keep in constant contact with them.

Alright, you’ve checked your research for supply and demand. You have a strategy in place in case of inventory moves faster than expected. And as for as any issues coming to light you can correct them. Now there is only one more thing to do.

User Experience

That is checking with your website tech team to make sure your site can handle the increased visitor traffic during your sale. Have your tech team research your website’s load time and servers to see if your site can deal with the rush of visitor traffic you are going to experience.

It is well documented that site load time if slow affects visitors experience negatively. If your landing page takes forever to load visitors will click out and find their merchandise somewhere else. Also, those consumers clicking away from you will even pay a little more for what they want if the user experience is better.

Finally, have you implemented a quick pay payment service like PayPal and Stripe? Be aware that making the check-out as painless as possible for your customer’s is part of the user experience sets you up for future sales. PayPal and Stripe will compliment your business especially with the increase in check-outs.

Conclusion

Taking the time to prepare for a Flash Sale is what makes this strategy successful. A Flash Sale only lasts for a limited time, but all the preparation is going to be worth the time and effort in the end. Considering all the angles for problems and then making a plan to take care of those problems.

Flash Sale Checklist

1. Do you know what form of Flash Sale you want to execute?

2. What audience do you want to target? {new customer or current customer}

3. Do you currently have a list of customers email addresses?

4. Are you ready to handle the increased volume of orders? Is your supply chain equipped with the tools for supplying customers?

5. Did you check your inventory for supply and demand? Preparation supply and demand research is the key to a successful campaign.

6. Is your website prepared to handle the influx of increased visitors without the worry of your site crashing?

After answering these questions, you are ready to set up your first Flash Sale. And then you have one more task to complete. That task is to start designing and organizing your landing page, emails, advertising, and social posts.

Crafting your landing page flash sale then you can advertise it by email, online marketing or social media platforms. Your messages should focus on the discount, the urgency to act Today and the value of the products for sale.

I’ve shown you some tips on how to get started and win at your first Flash sale. I hope I was able to shed some light as well as give you some ideas. Best wishes for your success!

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